


To Hold Each Other

by Marsali



Series: Marsali's Soulmate AUs [2]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Dirty Talk, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Jaal POV, Love at First Sight, M/M, Meant To Be, Romance, Sappy, Sappy Ending, Sappy everything, Smut, UGLY SOBBING, coma scott, evfra deserves nice things, evfra pov, evfra will make you cry, fictional prejudice, he's blue in all the ways, i wanted to write like 4000 words, i've never written that much smut, jaal is a lovelorn fool, kids are mean, pathfinder sara, they crossed the universe to find each other oh my god, why can't i keep things short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-08 20:41:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11089515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsali/pseuds/Marsali
Summary: When Sara and Scott Ryder were born within minutes of each other the marks on their arms were still too small to decipher. They would become legible once they got older. Only, the letters that did appear cleared nothing up at all.Jaal Ama Darav was born without a soulsense. Evfra de Tershaav was, too. This could mean either that their true ones had not been born yet or that they were dead already. Or maybe ... maybe it meant they were destined to be alone.





	1. Sara Scott Jaal Evfra

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SilverSie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverSie/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Family You Find](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11051943) by [thatviciousvixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatviciousvixen/pseuds/thatviciousvixen). 



> Okay. Hear me out. Remember how I said I wasn’t gonna write anything until my exam was over and I’d moved into my new apartment? Well, I would like to use this opportunity to reveal myself as the dirty little liar I am. I didn’t want to be a liar. I wanted to totally see this through. 
> 
> But then I read “The Family You Find” by thatviciousvixen and a muse ran into my room, ignoring the one sitting in the corner binging Netflix and rocking back and forth while the Like Starbursts So Bright series is on hiatus. That little wench kissed me with a lot of tongue and then ordered me to write this, so, as you can clearly see this is a hostage situation. I’m doing this under duress. 
> 
> I’m supposed to be studying up on women in the early modern era. I’m not supposed to be doing this. Do I hate myself? Yes. Do I care? Kinda. Did I do this anyway? Hell, yeah. 
> 
> This was beta’d by the most awesome and amazing and altogether lovely SilverSie/slagginbitch. Thank you soooo much. You did such an amazing job! And in honor of all your tears and Evfra feels I'm gifting this fic to you <3 
> 
> If you want to, you people can hit me up on tumblr under laughing-lady-of-the-skies.

When Sara and Scott Ryder were born within minutes of each other the marks on their arms were still too small to decipher.

There was nothing unusual about that. People in the past had tried to read the marks of infants and their efforts had always been met with little success.

They were nothing more than smudges, which was just as well. Fate would not be prevented but neither could it be rushed. The little blots of black, these little Rorschach pictures, would separate and clear up into something legible once they were good and ready to and once the arms they were attached to were no longer soft with newness and innocence. Nothing took your innocence away faster than fate, after all.

The thing about Rorschach pictures was that you could see almost anything in them and nobody could really tell you that you were wrong.

What to one person was a butterfly was a flower to another. What they actually did was tell you something about how your mind worked. About what your psyche was like.

Soulmarks weren’t supposed to be like that. They were clear; there was no room for interpretation. Your mark said Jonas Hooper? That was your soulmate. You just had to find the right Jonas Hooper. How did you know you had the right one? You just _did_. Something about brain chemistry and hormones and, yes, fate once again, let you know. There might be thousands of potential soulmates around, technically, but in truth there was no variation. You either had the right one or you didn’t. Clear as day. Easy as pie.

Except –  

 

* * *

 

Jaal Ama Darav was born without a soulsense.

Evfra de Tershaav was, too.

It was a sad occasion on Havarl and on Voeld respectively.

Not that it was completely uncommon. It simply meant that their intended mate had not been born yet. It happened like that sometimes. Somebody had to be first after all and it wasn’t like it had been apparent from the get go. A baby had no idea that it was lacking something until somebody told them it was.

Jaal didn’t know he should be feeling something that he just _didn’t_ until he was four and one of his aunts was getting married. He would never forget his true mother’s face when he had asked her when he would feel this light that lived simultaneously within and outside himself, as aunt Chasind had described it. This beacon he was supposed to be drawn to as if steered by the mysterious and insistent hands of destiny. “Soon,” his mother had promised. “Soon,” she repeated over the months that followed after, when Jaal asked about it every day, thinking in an outraged way only a small child could muster, that he and his mother had to have a very different idea of what _soon_ meant exactly. He also learned that time was relative and that in some cases _soon_ could mean hours and in others it could mean years. He found out that other words for soon were shortly, presently, and in a bit. He was afraid that he would have to learn that, sometimes, soon could also mean never.

“Soon,” was also what Evfra was told by his true father. Times were simpler back then. For one, Evfra still had a father to tell him such wisdoms, well-meaning though false as they were. But with the reassuring hand of his father on the back of his skull Evfra felt a sanguine calm inside of himself. If his father told him it would be soon then it would. Doubt was not a thing he had learned yet, even though he had lived his short life on a planet covered in nothing but ice. Had Evfra been a poet at heart he would have found it poetic later that, while he was a child he never felt anything but warm inside, as an adult a chill would creep inside his bones and live in the place where a warm buzz should have hummed.

Because sometimes, usually, most of the time, when a child was born without a soulsense, it meant that their intended was not alive yet.

Other times it also meant that they weren’t alive _anymore_.

However –

 

* * *

 

– their marks weren’t like that. Alec Ryder would have been proud had the circumstances been different and this accident of birth meant that they had an advantage over other kids. Instead, his children were set up for heartbreak and he didn’t know how to fix it.

A soulmark was supposed to clear things up once and for all. You read your name and then you waited a bit until you either found them by accident in your youth or you got to searching once you were an adult.

Sara’s and Scott’s marks, though different, cleared nothing up at all.

They stared at them a lot before bedtime once they knew what they were. In their pajamas they sat shoulder to shoulder on Scott’s bed, since he had the bottom bunk, and couldn’t very well climb up to Sara because he had a broken leg during that time. Scott in his white PJs with the red cuffs and collar and little varren all over them and Sara in a matching set in green. There they sat, sleeves rolled up, scrawny arm to scrawny arm staring at the symbols.

“I feel like maybe they didn’t teach us the whole alphabet in school, yet,” Scott mused, leg throbbing and eyebrows drawn together.

“I wonder when we’ll get to that. I wanna know what they say.” Sara poked one of the blocky squiggles on her brother’s arm. “Yours is longer.”

“But they’re both three words, see?” he asked her, pointing to where the blocks separated twice on their arms.

“Middle names,” Sara said, scrunching her nose up. “I bet they are something embarrassing. Like Mildred. Or Wolfgang.”

“We’ll love them anyway,” Scott told her wisely and then they both cracked up because, well. At that point they were still innocent. They didn’t know yet.

Until –

 

* * *

 

– Jaal was not inclined to believe that. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Yes, sometimes the idea would crawl into his mind and sit there, especially at night when he wanted to sleep. But the snoring of his siblings couldn’t soothe him then. The quiet shuffles he could hear whenever somebody turned in their sleep only disturbed him more and it was during such nights that Jaal snuck out of the house and stared at the stars, surrounded by the luminescent flora of his home planet.

There was an Angaran legend that said people became stars once they died until they were ready to be born again. So that, while their one true loves were still alive but couldn’t feel their shining light anymore, they could see it every night if only they looked up. So, while during the day Jaal – if asked – always said he was confident he would feel his darling one _soon_ , at night he sat outside, staring up at the firmament, wondering which of them was his. Sometimes Sahuna found him trembling, not with cold but absence, and sometimes she found him asleep, arm outstretched as if grasping for something that defied being held.

Evfra lost his family early. He wasn’t yet twelve turns of the planet old when his true mother and father were taken by the Kett. He was left with other mothers and fathers, but his family had been a small one to begin with and in his heart he felt that it would become smaller still. He simply knew. Because he was cursed.

He snorted, whenever he thought about it, a huff of visible, smoky air leaving his lungs, because he seldom could suppress a little huff. Cursed. Hexed. The one without a soulmate. Because lately, they said it wasn’t that his one had not been born yet or died too soon. It was simply that he’d never had one to begin with. That he was destined to be alone. His people feared loneliness most of all and Evfra was no exception. He held his remaining family tightly to his hollow chest, almost suffocating them at times for fear of them drawing their last breath too early. To be marked a loner was to be marked an outcast. It didn’t help that his village was a superstitious one. It did not help that Evfra, though a man – because he thought of himself as one even then – of rationale, had grown up within this culture and could not help but feel that he was made to be lonely. That one day somebody would open his chest and find a gaping cavern where his heart should have been.

So –

 

* * *

 

– they learned that they were done. There weren’t any secret letters that only the upper years got to study. Once elementary school was over, they knew they were definitely finished with letters. And while math, confusingly, decided it needed letters as well as numbers in it, literature decided no such thing.

But Scott came up with an easy answer after he had worked with Julius Kryk in bio.

“We’re both idiots. Just because our marks aren’t in human script, doesn’t mean they can’t be in alien script. They’re aliens, our soulmates. _Duh_ ,” Scott told his sister in a highly superior tone that Sara didn’t particularly appreciate but decided to let lie, because, holy frick, they _had_ been idiots.

“So, is it Turian? Is Julius your soulmate?” If so, _yuck_.  

Scott stuck out his tongue, fake gagging. “Urgh, no. Julius is an ass. I hate working with him, but Prof. Rylen decided we had to work together because we don’t like each other.”

They both shook their heads, marveling over the stupidity of teachers. “But I saw what he was writing and _of course_ it didn’t look like our letters, so it clicked. But Turian looks nothing like this. We’ll have to do some research.”

Two hours later saw Sara and Scott at home, their parents both gone for work, Scott typing away at their communal terminal, since they were both too young for an omni-tool still. Sara was on the lookout in case their Mom or Dad came home.

“I feel like a fugitive. Or a delinquent,” Scott told her, typing intently.

“Look who’s breaking out the big words. I’ll still kick your butt at Scrabble,” Sara shot back, peering out the door. “And we wouldn’t have to be sneaky about it if Mom and Dad didn’t behave so weird.”

“Yeah, I mean. Whose parents don’t talk to their kids about their marks? They both have alien friends, it’s not like they’re xenophobes or something. They could have told us.”

“Maybe the letters are Batarian. Or Vorcha,” Sara pointed out. Their Dad wasn’t too fond of those guys. Heck, the whole galaxy wasn’t, really.

Sara was still looking down the hallway when she suddenly noticed that Scott had stopped typing, or making any noise at all for that matter. She frowned and turned around, wanting to find out what was going on.

“What is it? Have you found it? Don’t tell me – it’s actually Hanar,” she half-joked and went over to her brother.

But Scott’s shoulders were slumped forward and he had closed all windows on the terminal.

“Scott?” Sara blew her bangs out of her eyes and tried to catch his gaze. Scott looked up at her, the corners of his mouth drawn down in that way they did when he was really sad.

“It’s nothing. There’s nothing there. It’s gibberish,” he said, voice breaking a little and hands wiping furiously at his eyes.

“What do you mean? How can it be nothing?” Something like panic was clambering up Sara’s lungs and she stomped it down, sure she had just misunderstood.

“I even took a picture of my mark, did a search, cross-referenced it. There’s no species in this galaxy that uses these shitty symbols, Sara. There’s no one. They don’t exist.”

“Don’t say that,” Sara demanded from him, but it sounded less than the outraged yell she had wanted to let out and more like a whisper. But Scott had jumped up and run out the room already anyway, so it didn’t matter.

While Sara’s jaw started trembling so much her teeth clacked together and she had to clench her mouth shut so hard her skull hurt up to her temples, she stared at the little black blocks on her arm, for the first time realizing that they might not mean anything after all. They might be nothing. Just a joke. Maybe fate had dunked her quill in too much ink and had just left splotches of weird on her and Scott by accident, like Sara had when she had tried that calligraphy elective once.

But before any actual tears could come she brushed that thought away with a viciousness she hadn’t known she possessed and later theorized she had learned in this very moment. The galaxy was big and maybe they had met all the aliens in it already. But the universe was much bigger. And while maybe that meant she would never, ever, meet her soulmate at least it also meant that they were alive out there somewhere. And that was better than nothing. Sara could live with never knowing them. As long as they existed, she could deal.

Scott, meanwhile, had buried himself in his sister’s bed. He’d crawled up the ladder to her bunk under the slanted roof of their room and curled himself into the corner of the bed, where two walls connected. His nose buried in his sister’s pillow, surrounded by her smell, he felt safe. He still had his sister, even if he didn’t have a soulmate. He wasn’t alone, even if nobody was really, _really_ meant for him. He still had his genetic other half. He didn’t need a romantic one, too. Love was stupid anyway. He had never been in love before and most of what he had seen of it looked gross anyway. Scott didn’t even know why his heart was breaking because of the idea alone that he might not have a soulmate, but had a birthmark gone wrong on his arm instead.

Bringing up said arm to his head he stroked his nose over the script, skin slightly raised where the symbols were printed on, but soft like his moles were, too. Maybe it was just that. Nothing more than a stupid, stupid mole.

He had to hammer this thought into his head until he believed it, until it was true. Once he had accepted that, he could get on with his life.

But while he was repeating it over and over until his sister crawled into bed with him and cuddled up to his back, breathing wetly into the place between his shoulders, Scott felt something crack inside himself with every repetition of the words until he stopped and listlessly let his limbs sprawl over the duvet. It was better to believe it, wasn’t it? What else could he do?

“Where are you?” he whispered, both to his own mate and to Sara’s, who was just as unreal.

“I don’t know,” Sara answered just as quietly. “But they’re out there somewhere.”

Scott wasn’t sure he could believe that.

But –

 

* * *

 

– when Jaal and Evfra first met, both in their early twenties but Evfra a few years older, they shouldn’t have bonded. Probably wouldn’t have, had the situation been any different. Evfra, at first, saw in Jaal nothing but a too-loud voice and a bleeding heart.

Jaal found Evfra cold and indifferent.

They clashed at every opportunity, arguing, Evfra regaling Jaal with the silent treatment, Jaal getting into Evfra’s face whenever he could.

Until Evfra was promoted the leader of the resistance, both a battlefield promotion and one he had earned by proving to be able to stay calm in dire situations and showing his prowess in all things strategy. Jaal, who was nothing if not a team player, came to congratulate him, feeling it was Evfra’s due, no matter how much the man got on his nerves.

“Your true love must be proud,” he told him and Evfra’s already cold heart seemed to harden further at the assumption.

“I would not know,” he bit out in an uncharacteristic bout of raw honesty. He tried to keep himself aloof, far away from his comrades, now charges. But his whole family was dead now, all wiped out by the Kett, and even if Evfra was destined to deal with the world without any help that did not mean that he didn’t sometimes slip and let something through that felt suspiciously like a cry for help.

Jaal immediately stood to attention, features drawn and worried. As Evfra had, somewhere deep down, known he would. “Why do you say this?”

He might as well see it through now. There was no use in pretending, anyway. And if Jaal proved to be a gossip, then Evfra would be spared any future charades in front of the others. “I don’t have a soulsense. Never have.”

He looked away, but let his gaze settle on Jaal again just as fast. He wanted to see what Ama Darav had to say to that. Was he going to be appalled? Disgusted? Pitying?

But the prick actually surprised him by displaying none of these emotions. Instead, he walked resolutely over to Evfra and put both his hands on his shoulders. His eyes spoke of nothing but sorrow and through the current Jaal sent through him, Evfra gleaned that he more than understood what being alone was like.

“I’m the same,” Jaal told him in a voice that mourned and eyes that were weeping without tears, as if there had been shed too many of them already.

And for a second, Evfra let himself be weak in the face of the one man he had ever met who could relate. He gripped the meat of Jaal’s forearms and hung on, a current of pain and resignation flowing between them, sharing the burden and lessening it.

Though –

 

* * *

 

– school wasn’t easy once the first few couples had started pairing up. Soulmarks became more and more important and just as their importance increased so did the percentage of people who noticed that Sara’s and Scott’s marks were somehow wrong.

Ellen worried and Alec yelled every time Sara and Scott came home with grazed knuckles and black eyes, because neither of them could take it if someone made fun of the other.

Scott took to hiding his mark under a band for a while, a decision Sara met with silent distain.

The band drew even more attention to the mark though, so Scott stopped bothering with it within a week.

“I just feel like you’re dishonoring them by hiding them, or something. I know it’s stupid, but that’s what it feels like,” she told him during lunch, which they had started to eat alone in the corner of the cafeteria because it was easier that way.

“You don’t even know that they actually exist,” Scott murmured still standing by his decision but at the same time feeling oddly ashamed.

“And you know that they don’t?” his sister retorted, twirling her straw between her fingers. “They might be out there somewhere.”

“Maybe.”

Scott couldn’t understand how Sara managed to be so optimistic. They couldn’t even read the names of these supposed soulmates they had, even if they were real. She was only setting herself up for disappointment.

Sara couldn’t understand how Scott could stand being such a pessimist. She might not have known what the symbols on her arms stood for but … If you didn’t have hope what else was there?

They wouldn’t find out who was right for a while.

Until –

 

* * *

 

– their familial situations were vastly different, they both felt loneliness.

Evfra felt alone because he had no family, no friends. Because he felt hexed, despite the thought being nonsensical, and wondered sometimes when exactly it had been that he had misplaced his heart.

Jaal felt lonely the same way you could stand within a crowd and scream without anybody hearing you. His family was all around him, loving him, talking, touching, writing. But they all had someone of their own or knew what it was like to have loved in such a deep and unerring way. Among them, he was an outsider, an anomaly. He was with them but he was not the same. The agony within him was all the bigger because of how ungrateful he felt.

They became friends. Slowly. Through shared pain and knowledge they overcame their glaring differences and bridged gaps whenever necessary. The way to friendship was a stony one but once the nigh-impossible had been achieved Jaal would have punched anyone who would have dared to say it had not been worth it. Evfra was not an easy man to get to know but in the end you could not have a more loyal friend. Jaal was sure they had forged a bond that would last until either of them died. And beyond, into the next life.

Evfra had called Jaal a fool before he had gotten to know him and continued to do so after. That didn’t mean that he did not treasure the gun Jaal had put together for him. It did not mean that he didn’t treasure their talks or welcome his gentler hand in matters that would have shattered through Evfra’s stricter policies. Havarl was a humid planet and Jaal seemed to have brought a bit of his home world with him. He was the only one that had ever been capable of bringing dew into the frozen wasteland of Evfra’s chest.

They made do. They were nothing alike save for both being cursed by destiny. But they stood by each other. Evfra let Jaal lean on him. Jaal made Evfra feel a little more alive. They could have continued on like this.

Even so –

 

* * *

 

– an opportunity presented itself.

“Suck it, Scott.”

“It doesn’t mean you’re right.”

“We’re going to a different galaxy. _A different galaxy_. That’s why we have these marks, bro.”

“Don’t start talking about fate, please.”

“Why the fuck not? The marks are destiny and it’s our damn destiny to go to Andromeda and fuck some aliens, Scott. And I think that’s beautiful.”

“Please stop.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Hoping.”

 

* * *

 

– they did not have to.

It happened suddenly. Jaal was standing on the balcony by the resistance quarters, staring down at beloved Aya, enjoying the breeze on his flushed cheeks when out of nowhere it hit him.

His breath was punched out of his lungs and he stumbled forward a step, hastily uncrossing his arms to let his fingers clutch the rails in front of him. His whole body started to tingle, from the top of his head down to the tips of his toes. His eyes watered as a longing — no a _yearning_ —, filled his entire being until his heart felt fit to burst. Jaal felt the almost undeniable need to steal a shuttle, and launch himself at the stars in a direction that he could identify as vaguely eastward. _He had to_. He needed to be _there_. Because _they_ would be there. He knew it. He just knew it. If he just let go and found a shuttle, then …

Jaal let out a laugh that could have doubled as a sob without any problems and then couldn’t hold back the gales of booming laughter that followed. His true mother had always told him he would know when he would be given soulsense. That it was not something that could be mistaken or missed. Now he knew her words had been nothing but the truth.

His hand pressed tightly to his chest where his heart was beating like a war drum and he stumbled towards the headquarters, needing to tell Evfra what had happened, needing to share his joy with someone right there and then before he burst from it.

But he didn’t have to set more than two steps inside the building before he saw his friend rushing down the stairs with an expression he had not seen often on his face.

He was smiling, both hands pressed to his heart that, Jaal guessed, was beating up as much of a storm as his own.

If it hadn’t been impossible, Jaal would have said his joy doubled. It was not just him. It was Evfra, too. The both of them had gotten what they had so dearly wanted almost all of their lives and Jaal was sure Evfra would probably scold him for this later, but he crashed into his friend and hugged him as hard as his quivering arms would let him. Evfra huffed a little but hugged him back with equal strength.

They finally weren’t alone anymore.

 

* * *

 

“Hoping.”

“Huh?” Harry said as Sara was staring down at the motionless body of her brother on his bed in the medbay.

She cleared her throat. “He said he was afraid of hoping before we came here. I laughed at him for it. I think I jinxed the whole thing.” Sara stroked the skin on the back of Scott’s right hand. “Because we thought we might find our soulmates here. And now he might never actually meet them, but this time it isn’t because space is in the way but because of an accident.”

But before Sara could get to deep into the sorrow that was rising in her throat trying to drown her, Harry interrupted her. “He’ll be fine. Didn’t you hear me?”

Sara’s head shot up. “What?” She narrowed her eyes.

“He’ll sleep for a bit. Heal. But he’ll wake up. He’ll get to see his soulmate. I don’t want to _jinx_ it by promising but …” He winked at her and she swiped at him, but he stepped out of the way just in time.

It felt like the weight of the world had been taken from her shoulders. They would get what they had come here to do. What their father had made possible for them, because Sara wasn’t convinced that this issue hadn’t been somewhere in the back of his mind while arranging this.

She leaned close to Scott and brought her lips to his ear. “Soon, baby bro. We’ll find them. They’re here somewhere. You just have to wake up. I’ve never been very patient. If you don’t wake up, I’ll do it without you.”

And though she had meant it as a playful taunt, she did.

She should have known –

 

* * *

 

– it would not be so easy.

Within a day, their happiness had been dampened significantly.

Their scouts had recorded a new ship that had made its way into the galaxy. Another of these arks the aliens kept talking about had docked at their base, the Nexus. Both Evfra and Jaal knew what that meant.

And they didn’t know what to think about that at all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wanna see some awesome artwork for this story go to this link: http://shaungeddmore.tumblr.com/image/161516960755
> 
> Courtesy of the amazing shaungeddmore!


	2. Sara & Jaal

These aliens had arrived almost two years prior, a gaggle of different species, one stranger than the next. Their brethren had been naturally suspicious of them and many of these aliens had proven to be untrustworthy by taking over Kadara Port with violent ease, for instance. Evfra was reluctant to equate them with the Kett and Jaal was even more so, but their people simply could not afford to hand out trust so freely anymore. 

Evfra didn’t know which species this ark carried and really, he didn’t have much of a preference. In the end, they were all equally alien, all equally unknown.

He was unsure how to handle this.

Would it have been worse if his one had been an Angara thirty years his junior? Was _this_ preferable?

He had never even entertained the notion that his intended could be anything but Angaran. He was the leader of the resistance. He could not afford to be foolish, to let infatuation rule over him when his people were at stake, no matter how much the buzz inside him told him to leave his beloved Aya and run out with arms open wide to meet the person he had been yearning for his whole life in a much more forlorn way than he did now.

Within two weeks, Jaal was experiencing a different problem altogether. While before he had felt the need to leave Aya, he now simply wanted to run to the docking bay and wait there. At first he didn’t know what to make of that, only that he knew he simply had to do it. He actually found himself beginning to wander a few steps into that direction anytime he wasn’t paying attention.

Which could only mean one thing.

“They are coming,” he told Evfra immediately, once he was sure.

“What do you mean?” Evfra asked him distractedly, continuing to pore over his maps.

“Until a few hours ago I wanted to fly to the stars. Now I want to go to the docking bay,” he said simply. His voice sounded about as steady as he felt, which was to say, not very.

Evfra’s head shot up and he pierced Jaal with his blue stare. “They are coming here. To Aya. _How dare they_.” He whirled around, his scarf slightly fluttering behind him.

“You do not…” Jaal started, already knowing the answer.

“No, my… whoever it is, is not on the ship. It seems that they have more manners, at least, than _your_ intended. They were not invited.”

But Jaal knew, though Evfra was apprehensive about their true ones just as Jaal was, that something like jealousy must have been burning inside of his friend. He had waited longer than Jaal and he would have to be patient longer still.

But before he could try and offer solace to his comrade, alarms started blaring and Paaran Shie informed them that they had hostiles incoming.

“They know how to make an entrance,” Evfra told Jaal in a dry voice, as a ship – and a beautiful ship it was – was coming down in blazing flames.

Jaal felt proud. And afraid down to the marrow of his bones.

Somewhere on this ship his future awaited him and nowhere was it written what this future might hold. This alien might be so different as to be utterly unrecognizable to him.

While the ship landed — was forced to land by ships of his own people — a mass of security gathered at the docks while Evfra and Jaal kept to the back. It took a bit until the landing hatch opened but once Jaal saw two straight, thin legs and then the short body they were attached to walk down the way, he couldn’t help but stumble forward a step.

Evfra, arms crossed, expression aloof, studied him with seemingly bored interest. “It’s her, isn’t it?”

Jaal wanted to nod, because there was not one cell inside his body that was unsure about this.

“She’s human,” Evfra informed him, as if Jaal hadn’t already known that from the way she looked. He had met humans before, briefly. They were the ones with the fur. _Hair_. He wanted to touch hers, which was brown and gleamed in copper tones in the sunlight.

“I’m only telling you,” Evfra said with emphasis “because humans have names written on their arms. You’ll have to ask her to show you.”

“How do you know that?” Jaal asked, almost unable to keep still anymore but still so deathly afraid to say hello to the rest of his life.

“How do you think? I asked around. A scout found out on Kadara. Humans have names. Those birdlike aliens, Turians, have songs. The blue ones have dreams. The burly ones gain the same wounds as their ones. That’s what I know.”

Jaal smiled a tender smile at him that had Evfra roll his eyes. “You are a good friend,” he told him sincerely.

“It’s mostly self-interest,” said Evfra, waving his thanks away. “Quit stalling, coward. But be careful.”

Jaal clapped his friend on the back one last time, a gesture Evfra endured patiently, before he shouldered his way into the crowd looking at this alien that was to be his and suddenly, shockingly, looking into her eyes.

And blue connected with blue.

 

* * *

 

When Jaal stepped in front of her, she was still talking to Shie, but Jaal paid it no mind that he was being impolite by interrupting.

There was no doubt in his mind anymore, not now that he was standing right in front of her and his soulsense was thrumming, veritably vibrating with the certainty that this tiny person with light blue eyes, and a black mark visible on one of the arms she had still lifted, was _his_. His alone. His one true love.  

He stepped closer to her than was probably culturally acceptable but he had to _see_. Stepped so close that suddenly the vibrations inside of him came to a halt, his soul apparently satisfied now that he was face to face with his one and every pore of his body seemingly giving a sigh of relief that made him notice how tense he had been.

She stared up at him, eyes impossibly wide, full lips slightly parted. She was beautiful and _strange_ and interesting. His eyes kept wandering over her features, kept being drawn in by the pools of her eyes, such an unusual blue.

He closed his own eyes for a second, gathering all his courage, and redirected his gaze from the vision of her face to the lettering on her arm.

And there it was, unmistakable, for all those to see who could read Shelesh to see.

_Jaal Ama Darav._

His name.

Branded on her, marking her soul as his. Marking his body, his essence, his very being, _all hers._

He could scarcely believe it. After all this time, after the yearning, the heartbreak, the straining ache in his soul here she was, so small and unassuming but at the same time bigger than life.

But first, as much as it pained him, he had to ask why she was here. Had to ask her intentions.

He had to make _sure_.

 

* * *

 

“We want an alliance. We want to be friends. Coming down here on fire wasn’t the plan, though it was pretty spectacular if you don’t mind me saying so,” she told him when he asked, silly laugh in her voice.

But she couldn’t help it because _there he was_.

And she didn’t even know what the hell she meant by that. She had no idea who this stranger was, but at the same time she felt like he was the most familiar thing she had ever seen in her life. She felt like she knew him even though that was completely impossible.

But something about this man, this big, hulking, massive man… drew her in. Made her want to step even closer, though if she did that she would be walking face first into his chest, which would be a bad idea, even though it would probably feel delicious. _Something_ made her yearn to touch him. To do anything to make him like her.

Hence the stupid joke.

Thankfully his humor seemed to favor pathetic women, because he smiled a little smile at her.

Within minutes she was taking on quests from the governor of the city to prove the words she had uttered in the face of a beautiful man. Save the Moshae, blow up a research facility. Whatever. She’d blown up a Kett facility on Eos as well. She could probably replicate that.

Fuck, Sara should probably have paid more attention, but it kept slipping. Jaal – such a pretty, pretty name for such a pretty, pretty man – had vanished sometime during the talks and instead she was now talking to a sarcastic son of a bitch called Evfra, whose dryness of temper she might have appreciated any other day, but not now, when she actually _missed_ the _scent_ of her earlier acquaintance. It made no sense that she had memorized his scent within minutes and liked it enough to miss its absence.

“Do you always pay such little attention?” Evfra asked her derisively and Sara schooled her features into an expressionless mask, because she almost flinched at his words.

“No. I’m sorry. I don’t know what…” But even as she was saying it her gaze slipped away from the Angara in front of her, searching for the one that was not there.

Evfra snorted but when she forced her gaze back to him his face betrayed something like softness, which seemed unlike him, judging by the short time she had known him. “You keep searching for Jaal.” There was wistfulness in his voice and for some reason Sara felt a spike of compassion for this rigid man in front of her.

“How do you know?”

“Ask him. And don’t dawdle. He has been waiting a long time. At least one of us should be happy.” He whirled around and walked towards the door before Sara could utter another word. “Jaal will accompany you on your trips. He will assess the situation. And _you_ as future allies. Though I question his ability to stay impartial,” he told the door with a scoff, before he left Sara.

She had no idea what on earth he meant.

But in the back of her mind the little seed of hope she had cultivated her whole life cautiously started to sprout.

 

* * *

 

Jaal didn’t get a moment alone with her until after he had been debriefed by her and met the rest of her crew.

He was unsure how to proceed. Common sense told him to wait until she had honestly proved herself. Until they had rescued the Moshae or gone to Voeld. That would be the rational thing to do. Words were pretty things and Jaal’s poet soul loved them. But frequently they meant nothing. He didn’t yet know if Sara belonged to the kind of people who lied to get what they wanted and only time would tell if she did.

If Jaal hadn’t been waiting as long as he already had been, that was what he would have done.

But even a patient man’s virtue ran dry if tried too often and Jaal found himself done with waiting.

Now had come the time of _doing_. Of taking chances. Of finally being allowed to love.

Within minutes he found himself in front of Sara Ryder’s quarters and pressed the chime at the side of the door. It was nighttime on the ship already and it took a while until she opened the door for him. When she did, her hair was unbound, falling around her face in enchanting tendrils, and she was wearing clothing that looked soft and comfortable.

“Jaal,” she said, clearly surprised but within the fraction of a second there was a big smile on her face and what he believed to be genuine joy in her eyes.

He felt himself flush.

“Might I come in? I have something private to discuss with you,” he rumbled out, throat dry and fingers fidgeting with all the nervousness he felt. He wished he had something to hold onto, to play with, as his hands would not be idle.

“Sure, sure. Come in, come.” As she stepped back he saw her grimace and hoped it wasn’t because of him.

As he looked around a little, coming to a stop in the middle of the room, he saw Sara take in the room as well, before she started to pick up a pair of trousers that had been thrown haphazardly on the floor. “I’m sorry for the mess. I wasn’t expecting anyone.” She picked up a shirt. “I’ve been living in here for less than two weeks and already managed to strew my crap all over the furniture. And the floor.”

Jaal huffed out a laugh, glad that she resorted to humor in awkward situations. Glad she was a humorous person altogether. He would have loved her in any case but had she been as rigid as Evfra, things would have been less… comfortable.

“I don’t mind. I still have the mummified body of my childhood pet in my trunk at home.”

Jaal froze.

Sara did as well, arm half outstretched for a bunch of dirty footwear that had wound its way around the armrest of the couch she was standing beside.

They looked at each other, both wide-eyed, until Sara nodded and quirked her mouth in a way that seemed to say ‘sure, why not’.

And then the both of them dissolved into laughter that had Sara drop her clothes on the floor and sit down beside the rumpled heap, back leaning on the side of the couch. “Oh, my god. I can’t believe you told me that,” she said, gasping for air.

“I don’t either,” Jaal answered, deciding to settle down beside her, whole body shaking with the ridiculousness of it all.

Here he was, so unsure about everything, so afraid, so anxious to make a good impression and what had he done?

He’d made her laugh. And a beautiful laugh it was.

He couldn’t have been more delighted. The skin around her eyes crinkled and the mirth that shone through her blue irises made his heart bloom with serene joy. She was so, _so_ beautiful, already so dear to him. Every action she seemed to perform, from the way the tips of her fingers twitched as her body was shaking with laughter to the red flush in her cheeks.

He adored it all.

In the end, it was his name on her that caught his gaze again, holding his attention prisoner, both because it was what had sealed his destiny and because it looked so right on her skin. Jaal had never known himself to be possessive, and really, he wasn’t. But the name was a visible affirmation of what he already knew to be true from the buzzing and calm she inspired inside of him. It was another reason for him to soldier on, close his eyes, and wish upon a star that everything would turn out to be alright.

“You keep staring at it,” Sara said, finally out of laughter. She brushed back a strand of hair behind her ear, little shells also flushed from laughter. In the faint light, Jaal could see tiny, see-through hairs on the lobe.

Her curious expression vanished when he didn’t answer immediately and her eyes filled with uncertainty, faint lines decorating her forehead. He found he preferred the happiness she had shown him just seconds prior.

“It’s … exotic,” he finally told her, not quite telling the truth but not lying either. “Angara find their true love through proximity. We have a sense… soulsense, we call it. It is a yearning that has inspired many of us to travel and explore.” He smiled slightly at her. “It tells us where to go.”

And now he was right where he needed to be. He had arrived. The place in the universe that had been carved out just for him was there for the taking and oh, how Jaal wanted to take his rightful place by her side.

“Seems pretty efficient,” Sara said, voice hushed, attention firmly on Jaal. He felt an odd sense of privilege to have all of it directed at him. He felt strong. Important. It was marvelous and right that she should inspire him to feel this way. He had known her for such a short amount of time and already she had such influence over him. It was scary and wonderful and nothing inside of him knew how to deal with it. All he could do was be grateful for such a gift and accept it with open arms. Everything else would have been blasphemy.

“Me and Evfra,” he continued, needing her to finally understand why he was here. What he wanted from her. “We didn’t feel it for most of our lives. Not until your ark arrived.”

And there it was. He knew she would understand. Something inside of him simply told him that she would.

But for a second there was only silence.

Only the slight mechanical whirring of the ship could be heard around them and for this one painful second Jaal feared he had miscalculated after all. Feared that maybe human culture treated soulmarks differently than most Angara did. Like the sages who ignored them in favor of higher pursuits. What did he know about humans? Had it not been for his brother, had it not been for Evfra, he would not even have known about their marks.

But then Sara let out a small sound and suddenly there was a thin but deceptively strong arm thrust in front of his vision. He looked at her face instead and found she had set it into an expression of fierce determination. He couldn’t have said what it meant.

“You can read this.” She wasn’t asking. It was a demand to him, leaving no space for compromise or declination. She knew what she wanted.

And he gladly gave it to her.

“Yes. It’s Shelesh. Both the script and the language.”

“What does it say?”

It was hard, deciphering the meaning behind her tone. What he wanted to hear was hope. But was that what he actually heard? It was difficult enough to hear anything above the rushing of his pulse and the buzzing of his sense that seemed to be telling him to get on with it and touch her and make her his.

“It’s my name.”

Saying it out loud made it even more real. The words hung between them, heavy with meaning and heady with all the promises they held. The question was just if Sara would accept everything Jaal wanted to be for her.

She let out a quiet breath and dropped her heavy gaze to her arm, raising her other hand to stroke the mark with all one, two, three, four, five fingers. “I was right,” she breathed, slight hitch to her voice.

A quizzical sound escaped him, not sure what she was referring to and anxious to find out.

When she raised her face to look at his again her smile had returned. It was just as radiant as it had been before but now there were tears in her eyes that seemed to be shining with light. “I kept telling Scott that we would find you here in Andromeda. I knew it. I just _knew_ it.”

With sudden swiftness she got up on her knees and straddled Jaal’s lap so they were face to face. The closeness of their new position punched every last bit of breath right out of his lungs and his eyes fixed themselves on her beautiful face, only centimeters away from his, her hair brushing against his cheek. Her scent enveloped him and he knew he would come to associate the fragrance with happiness and companionship. That was what she stood for in his eyes. With her there, he would never again feel out of place. And by the words she uttered next, it was all too easy to imagine that she felt the same.

“I finally found you.”

Her lips were trembling as her eyes stared into his, seemingly willing him to understand the momentousness of the occasion and finding nothing but affirmation in his own eyes, Jaal was sure.

Slowly, she settled on his thighs and hesitantly brought up her hand until the backs of her fingers touched his cheek, whisper soft and careful.

Jaal fought the urge to close his eyes from the divine feeling that slowly filled him and soothed away all aches his heart had ever felt. Within seconds he felt invigorated, new. Within seconds he knew that whatever would happen, this woman right here was his one and all. His everything. That he would cross the whole span of the universe to be with her even if it meant leaving everything else behind.

But ideally? They would stay here. And she would join his family. And he would join hers. And he would get to feel this content, this warm, for all his life slotted right next to her, where he belonged. The universe seemed to tilt on its axis and Jaal suddenly knew with forceful clarity that everything had been slightly askew until now. A lingering sense of wrongness that had sat within his heart had left him with this simple touch and the world had finally righted itself.  

With this certainty, he couldn’t wait anymore so he simply surged forward and pressed his lips to hers.

Jaal had imagined this moment so many times over the course of his life. He had never even thought to count them, always knowing that the amount would be far too high to keep track of it. But before now he had never had the chance to envision anybody in particular. His soulmate had always been intangible. Not quite real. He had never really understood what it would be like to have them in his arms.

Now, he not only had her in his arms but also in his lap, pressing insistently against his upper body, fingers digging into his neck flaps and then brushing gently over them as if in apology.

She was a small furnace in his arms and oh, how he liked that, how he relished in that warmth she provided and the softness that came with it.

The feel of her all around him, wisps of hair brushing his cheek again and her lips kissing him just as urgently as his were kissing hers. It was bliss.

Every atom of his body was enveloped by her light. Within two weeks he had gained the knowledge of her existence and she had been drawn to him across the _universe_ just as surely as if she had been feeling him instead of the other way around.

“You are a marvel,” he whispered against her lips, only taking a second away from them, before touching them again, again, again with his. He touched his tongue to hers, moaning at the contact and feeling her quiver inside his arms. He lifted his hand and put it upon her cheek, feeling the way her jaw moved as they kissed while she kept rocking her hips against his in small movements that might have been involuntary.  

“You’re beautiful,” Sara answered quietly. “ _God_.”

She threw her arms around his neck, pressing her chest, which was even softer than the rest of her body, against the hard hills and valleys of his, until nothing could have fit between them, nothing at all.

 

* * *

 

Sara felt frustration well up inside her along with an urgency that she knew would not be denied.  They still weren’t close enough. Nothing could ever have been close enough. She could already guess that she would always feel like that.

From the moment she had first seen Jaal and felt his presence with an unmistakable insistence, something inside of her had known.

Had known him, had known he was the one. It was a sense as old as anything. The stars maybe. Atoms. The universe.

What she felt for him was certainly as big as that.

And all of this only after she had known him for such a short while. She couldn’t fathom how it would grow to be even more forceful and deeper like a bottomless well of affection. That was how her mother had described it.

She could hardly wait.

But even so, she really wasn’t disappointed with what she had now. Fate was never wrong. If there was one thing you could count on in the world, it was that. And it wasn’t like she had any reason to question her. Not when a few kisses from a beauty of a stranger made her feel like _this_.

In all of her earlier experiences – and yes there had been some, she had needs and honestly she had wanted to have some idea of what she was doing before she met him – she had felt good, sure. There had been satisfaction and orgasms all around.

Right now, though? Right now she felt like those clichés of boys coming within seconds in their pants without much of anything happening might apply to girls as well. Her hips kept rocking against him, trying to find some friction and she was unable as well as totally unwilling to keep them still. Anything to find some relief.

Her whole body had been alight with vibrations ever since she had first touched Jaal. A simple kiss has turned her on so fiercely and completely that she could actually feel the wetness between her legs leaking and could feel her sex contracting every once in a while, as if grasping to be filled.

She needed it. Sara fucking _needed_ Jaal to be inside of her even more than he already was. She needed their bodies as well as their souls to become one. Needed there to be even less space between them. And she needed it now.

“Please, Jaal. Please. I need ... Please, say yes,” she whispered against his lips, tongue darting out to lick into his mouth and loving the shudder that ran through him at the contact.

“You need me?” he said with that deep voice of his and even that made pleasure pulse through her. How was it that everything about him seemed to be made to push all of her buttons? But that was what soulmates were about, wasn’t it? They were fucking made for each other and damn if it didn’t show.

“I might not survive it but, yeah.” She pressed her forehead against his, staring into those mesmerizing eyes of his, wondering if he felt the same.

“Then we’ll both die happily,” he told her maneuvering his arm under her backside while using the other to get up off the floor.  Sara instantly caught on and held onto his shoulders while Jaal straightened without so much as a groan of exertion.

Sara blinked at him for a second before grinning broadly. “You have no clue how hot that is.” She was already filled with visions of him holding her up and fucking her against the wall. So many ideas, so many possibilities. And she would get to try them all.

“I have _some_ ,” he told her, answering grin on his face while he walked her to her bed and put her down with utmost care.

For a moment he simply hovered over her and she instantly realized that she adored how broad he was. She bet that if he laid down on top of her you wouldn’t be able to see even one inch of her body. Except maybe for her thighs around his hips. Maybe they could invest in a mirror on her ceiling. Surely being the pathfinder had to have perks like that.

Sara arched her back, wishing more than ever she had something to rub against.

“Sara.”

“Yes?” she asked, raising a brow and playfully tilting her head to the side.

“Tell me I can be inside of you. Tell me we can be one.” He said it with such damn _want_ in his voice.

Like Sara would break his heart if she refused.

Not that she was of any mind to ever say no to a request like that. Not when it was coming from him.

“Please,” she simply answered but it came out with unmistakable intent. Making it clear that she was not in any way doing him a favor but wanted it just as much as he did.

Jaal rewarded her with another deep kiss that left her toes and the tips of her fingers tingling with the force and emotion behind it and Sara scrambled up to finally lose her shirt.

They dealt with their clothes ungracefully but swiftly. Sara’s floor was littered with clothes anyway so it didn’t matter that they added a few more. Seductive clothes shedding could come later when there wasn’t that much need. Which probably meant it would take a year or two but Sara wasn’t complaining about that.

She didn’t even take her time to look at him. She simply made sure that the kind of equipment she knew what to do with was there – and _oh, was it ever_ – before taking Jaal’s hand and tugging him over her on the bed. She spread her legs between his hips, calves pressing against him and urging him closer.

Sara had no idea what she had to look like, spread out under him, wanton like someone who couldn’t wait even a second longer until her lover finally pushed inside of her. But that was because she _couldn’t_ wait, felt like she would vibrate out of her body if they stayed separated for too much longer.

But Jaal would not be rushed. While he leaned over her, he drank her body in with his gaze, eyes roaming over her and cock twitching where it bobbed between them. The cold air was hitting her between her thighs and the way he was looking at her as she was laying there, totally on display for him, everything bared, made her walls contract another time and Sara swallowed dryly.

“You are a vision.”

A smile touched her lips for a second. She already knew that she was spoiled for anybody else. now that she had had Jaal look at her like that. It was just as well that she had no intention of ever getting into bed with someone else.

“Jaal. Just. Please put that gorgeous cock in me?” she asked, sure that she would think back on this situation later and cringe, because who said stuff like that?

But it seemed to work. Jaal immediately moved closer and Sara could not resist the temptation of using her own hand to steer him inside of her. He was hot under her fingers and there were delicious ridges placed along the tip of it, instead of the flared head a human would have had. She only let go once she felt him slide home inside of her in favor of clutching the bedspread between her fingers.

She gasped and arched her back until he was seated deeply inside of her, where he stopped for a bit, probably as much for her sake as for his if the way he was breathing into her ear was any indication. She loved the stretch of it, loved how her body adapted to accommodate him, how much of him she felt against her.

“This has to be my new favorite place in the universe,” he told her and it didn’t even occur to Sara for a second to question that statement. Not when all her thoughts seemed to revolve around that place inside of her where she could feel him insistently pressing against her soft walls.

Instead, she lifted her hips a little, her clit rubbing against the flesh at the base of his cock and Sara let out a little mewl. Which made Jaal get up on his elbows and fist one of his hands cautiously into her hair, simply holding on and not pulling even a little bit, before he started to move and boy. _Oh, boy._

From then on it wasn’t a long ride but damn if it wasn’t the best Sara had ever been on.

Maybe it was because they were just that sexually compatible.

Or it was simply because they were soulmates and fate made sure that soulmates liked the same basic stuff when it came to romance and sex.

But it could also be that it was the small electric shocks that felt like vibrations and seemed to be running over the whole length of Jaal’s body that she had to thank. Because Sara felt these vibrations just so and just where she needed them and god, it was such delicious torture, this little extra spice added to the wet friction between them.

And then there was Jaal who unerringly kept his gaze on her face staring at her with pleasure and wonder and something that looked like love or adoration or something equally impossible and wonderful written on his face.

So, maybe it was also the best ride of her life because no one had ever looked at her like that and she was sure she had never looked at anyone but him in such a way in return. This was a singular experience just as marvelous as the birth of galaxies. She had never been so glad to let somebody inside of her.

“Do you feel it?” he asked her, breath coming heavily over his lips while he was still thrusting into her steadily enough to drive her crazy.

“I feel – I feel a lot of things right now,” she managed to snark back, even though the tremor in her voice surely betrayed the fact that she felt nothing but bliss right now.

Jaal chuckled, rolling his hips in a fashion that rubbed against her just right and _oh_ –

In retaliation she clenched hard around him, making him fall forward on his forearm and whining, steady pace stuttering.

“This,” he said breathlessly and emphasized his point with a sloppy kiss she couldn’t help but chase after with her mouth “is the ecstasy of two souls becoming one.”

Sara felt a laugh rise in her chest and she couldn’t help but let it out, both joyful and incredulous that she had found a man that would say such things to her with such ardency while helping her build what looked like was going to be the orgasm of her life.

“I’m going to love you so much,” Sara told him, chest heaving and her hips meeting each and every thrust of his with equal fervor, chasing Jaal all the way up to the peak.

“Dear heart,” he replied, muscles of his upper arms trembling as much as Sara’s finger tips were when she brought them to his lips where he kissed them. “Temptress.”

Sara took both of her hands and put them on Jaal’s buttocks, digging her fingers into the soft flesh urging him on even more. By the way his thrusts became erratic he liked that very much and Sara could so work with that.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered once she could feel the telltale wave building, building, _building_ …

“Don’t st–“ And then she cried out, throwing her head back, hips canting up to meet his but unable to keep moving, body taut as a string as wave after wave crashed over her.

Jaal grunted in a way that seemed to be surprised as she began to spasmodically squeeze around him, breath leaving his lungs in one short huff that made him press his whole upper body against hers. Sara had just enough headspace left to feel proud to have felled that big a man simply through the power of her vagina and had to laugh around a moan as she actually felt his inhumanly hot semen fill her.

“Oh, god,” she stuttered out, voice almost inaudible as Jaal cried out against her temple, fingers of one hand still clutching at her hair and cries only slowly becoming quieter until both of their bodies finally relaxed into each other.  

Breathing hard, Jaal lifted his head and the both of them stared at each other openmouthed and happy if she read his expression right and if the little tendrils of electricity that he still seemed to be sending through her were any indication. She would have to ask him about that later.

“We’ll be doing this a lot. Just so you know,” Sara told him and this time it was Jaal that was laughing, big body shaking above her, his dick still seated deep inside of her, where it fucking belonged as far as she was concerned.

“I have no objection, darling one,” he told her, laughter still ringing out in his voice, and bent down for another kiss.

Right then, Sara experienced a moment of complete clarity. For a minute she could see her whole life as if it was unraveling in front of her. She knew with the utmost, damn certainty that, as long as this man was by her side, her life would be colored in laughter and joy and love.

There was no place she would have rather been.

There was no place in the whole universe that would have felt more flawless than this.

Her hope, her trust, her belief in fate had paid off and this was her reward.

 _Thank you_ , she thought, lips still pressing against Jaal’s, already feeling a second wave of arousal coming on.

_Thank you for guiding me here._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much everyone for reading and all you awesome comments <3 This is the first time in ages I've written smut, so please excuse me if I'm kinda rusty. 
> 
> Next time, it's Scott's and Evfra's turn :)
> 
> Love you all!


	3. Scott & Evfra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm weak. I know I posted the last chapter only yesterday, but yeah. Here's the rest :D 
> 
> Also, by now you must have noticed that this fic is completely self-indulgent and was basically just an excuse for me to write smut and be sappy. 
> 
> I don't care. So ... there. 
> 
> Have fun and thank you for reading!

“My brother is in a coma,” the pathfinder told him during one of their meetings about a month or so later.

Actually, not during. And actually not in a meeting.

 _Actually_ , the pathfinder had just called him in the middle of the night. On the priority line, no less.

“And that is a reason to almost cause an intergalactic incident _why_ exactly?” Evfra growled. He had been asleep. Which would have been fine, were he not plagued by insomnia and had this not been one of the nights where sleep had come readily.

“Let her speak, Evfra,” Jaal’s voice said and the man himself stepped into the picture, putting both hands on the pathfinder’s hips, visibly squeezing.

“Why should I?” Evfra spit, tired of the world and tired of the ache in his breast caused by witnessing his friend’s casual affection. It was not the first time he had seen them together and it would not be the last. He didn’t begrudge Jaal his happiness but he wasn’t a good enough man to not mourn his own situation more.

“You’ll want to hear this,” Jaal reassured him and Evfra almost hated himself for the fact that Jaal knew just which tone to take with him.

“Fine. Speak if you have to.”

Sara shook her head slightly and for the first time Evfra actually noticed how glad she looked. She never looked glad when she saw him. Annoyed, sure. Frustrated, definitely. But glad? No.

She visibly swallowed. “My brother, Scott. He’s in a coma. And I took Jaal to see him, because you never know what coma patients actually hear, yeah? So, I thought Scott might want to get to know him. Also … I had ulterior motives.”

“Which were?” Evfra asked, fervently wishing she would get to the point.

“I wasn’t the only one in my family that was born with a name written in Shelesh on their arm, you know?”

Evfra’s heart gave a painful thud.

He felt his whole body tense and at the same time, his arms uncrossed and fell limply to his sides. Did she mean…

She cleared her throat. “Since we haven’t catalogued that much of the language yet I couldn’t ask my AI, so I decided to ask Jaal to tell me what name my brother had on his arm. And since Jaal had already told me that you and him felt your soulsense come in at the same time, I felt like I was onto something anyway and if there was a chance – “

“No,” Evfra interrupted her, taking a step back. “No, don’t tell me, I can’t…”

What if it wasn’t him? What if it wasn’t true? What if they were simply telling him it was somebody else’s name, somebody he knew? That they had thought they had found Evfra’s true one only to have been wrong? Evfra wouldn’t be able to bear that. For a second there was hope and nothing had burned worse or cut deeper than this shred of warmth within his frozen self.

But…

But what if it _was_ him? What if they meant what the stupid, stubborn child within him wanted so much to believe? What if the pathfinder’s twin really was _his_? What would he do then? Had he not resigned himself to be forever alone? Was he not cursed, beyond any help? Had he not told himself that he could not take the risk?

“Evfra,” Jaal urged him. “Look at me, brother.”

Evfra’s head shot up and he stared at Jaal, wide eyed. He had never called him that. They didn’t call each other that. He had no family. Did he?

Jaal’s kind eyes looked back at him and there they stood. Sara Ryder and Jaal Ama Darav both staring at him with understanding and such warmth that Evfra’s treacherous knees wanted to buckle under the weight of it.

“Scott bears your name.”

And something within him finally eased as he thought –

_Can I really have this?_

 

* * *

 

Evfra couldn’t have rightly told anyone how exactly the rest of the conversation had gone.

All he knew was that by the end of the week, he had travelled to the Nexus to meet Jaal and Sara at the docking bay there. There he stood now, rigid and unmoving as ever, staring at the bustle of people all around him. Though outwardly betraying no turmoil, on the inside he was a wreck. He didn’t think he had ever been this nervous. Not when he had joined the resistance, not when he had become its leader. Not when he had killed his first Kett.

Nothing had ever affected him like the absence – or presence – of his soulsense. It was only natural that the impending meeting with the person his sense was supposed to steer him toward would leave him a shuddery mess.

Yes, he had had a small shred of doubt left when he had arrived at the Nexus.

He trusted Jaal, yes. But years upon years of pain and loneliness had gathered inside him and were not so easily dissuaded by something as intangible as words. Not even if they came from a person who called him brother. Not even if he had started to call said person brother as well.

Another wave of… anticipation, of tentative joy took hold of him. If Jaal chose Evfra for his family, if Scott really was his true one and he was the pathfinder’s sister… they all would be a family, truly.

He waved the thought away like cobwebs, fragile and new as they were. Until he had proof, until he saw and until it was clear that he would not be rejected, he did not want to hope. He would wait. It would not be much longer.

Once the pathfinder and Jaal came into view, Evfra wanted to walk towards them, to finally get on with it. His sense was telling him were to go, but he knew better than to believe they would let a lone Angara wander to a place where they kept their sick and dying. Their sleeping.

Jaal, apparently, knew him well enough not to linger here unnecessarily.

“Brother,” he greeted him, hugging him briefly.

“Brother,” he replied, voice rough as if the use of the word chafed his throat and squeezed him tightly for a second, before stepping back.

The pathfinder – Sara – was eying him speculatively, but in the end simply patted him on the arm, though he had a feeling that the mischief he had seen in her would one day express itself in a very public and very inopportune hug. “Hey, Evfra. Ready to go?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Sara led the way and though Jaal trailed closely behind her, it was Evfra’s side he stuck to. Loyal fool.

The minutes passed in a blur. Jaal talked in quiet tones to his mate but they left him out of the conversation, clearly guessing that he was in no mood for small talk.

They exited the tram and moved into an area that was clearly populated mainly by humans, if the lack of racial diversity compared to the Nexus was anything to go by. They came in many shapes and were colored in many differing hues of brown and tan, one woman with orange hair displaying skin almost white in tone.

Evfra realized that he did not know whatsoever what Scott looked like and resituated his attention to lie on Sara, idly wondering if maybe clues about his appearance could be found in his twin.

They came to a halt in front of a door and Sara turned to him.

“Okay, so. As I said, Scott is in a coma, because when they were trying to wake him up from cryo there was a malfunction. His brain has been healing though and Harry, Doctor Carlyle I mean, said that he could wake up any day. It’s just a matter of when he’s ready.”

A heavy weight settled on his shoulders and Evfra pressed his lips together tightly. “It figures.”

Sara drew her brows together, throwing Jaal a questioning look.

“Stop this. You aren’t cursed, you know that as well as I,” Jaal urged him, stepping closer until their shoulders were brushing.

“Cursed?” the pathfinder asked.

“It’s superstition. Sometimes my people aren’t kind. When Evfra failed to gain a soulsense…”

“They thought you were meant to be alone,” Sara finished Jaal’s dangling sentence and huffed out a laugh, regarding Evfra with a wry look. “And you somehow internalized that.” She shook her head. “You and Scott deserve each other. Fatalistic idiots.”

Before Evfra was able to ask what she meant by that she had stepped through the door, Evfra automatically moving to follow her.

For the fraction a second he wanted to ask her which of the humans in the room her brother was but really, there was no need to.

He might as well have been the only person in the room for all Evfra’s body could concentrate on nobody else.

He needed no further guidance, no more help. Throat dry, he fought against the almost unquenchable need to run to the human’s side. To the one human in this room lying prone on a bed, limbs straight, body only moving with gentle breaths.

He paced himself, walked stiffly, in a measured way until he came to stand beside this person who seemed to shine as bright as supernovas.

Evfra looked upon this man, broader than his sister but with the same tawny hair, and instantly felt like a ship lost at sea that had finally found its haven. He was not unmoored anymore. This was where he belonged. This was where he would stay. There was no other option. There was nobody else, not in this moment. Here and now, nothing else seemed to matter than basking in the presence of this being so unassuming and yet filled with all the promise in the world.

Evfra felt moisture wet his cheek and raised a hand to wipe it away with the back of his finger.

“Evfra?” Sara asked in a low voice.

“Yes?” he answered, tone much stronger than he had believed it would be.

“I’m pretty sure that _you’re_ already sure, but just to be safe…” She gently took her brother’s right arm and tugged up his sleeve.

Evfra had to brace himself on the bed, falling forward slightly, but still managing not to jostle Scott. _His one._

Because there for all the world to see, written in bold, blocky strokes was his name on Scott’s skin. Evfra had lost everything to be possessive about very young in his life. He had forgotten what it felt like. But now … He wanted to take Scott to his village and show everyone not only that they had been wrong, so cruelly, idiotically wrong, but also that this unusual person, this brave alien who had crossed lightyears upon lightyears of space into the unknown, was destined to be in his life.

“It’s quite something, isn’t it? Seeing your name like that,” Jaal said, standing beside Sara, always managing to touch her somehow, as if she were a magnet he could not help being drawn to. Though Sara seemed to be much the same, fingers tangled in the edge of Jaal’s rofjinn.

“Yes,” he sighed out. He was sure his vision should have been swimming with all this heady information. But nothing in his life had ever been as sharp and focused as the form of Scott. He had never seen so clearly.

He swallowed. “What,” he croaked out before clearing his throat. “What did you mean when you said he was fatalistic?” he asked Sara, not wasting another second by looking away from her brother again.

“When we were kids we researched our marks and it didn’t take long for us to realize that the script didn’t belong to any of the species in the Milky Way.” He heard clothing rustle and was sure she must have leaned against Jaal, seeking, perhaps, some comfort. “The other kids were pretty mean about it. Called us accidents. Said that fate had been careless with us. Jerks.” Evfra felt a spark of commiseration within himself. He could very much relate. “We kind of reacted differently to it. I decided that the marks _did_ mean something. That you guys had to be a species from a different place in the universe. I have gloating rights forever now, because I was so, _so_ right.”

“But Scott?” Evfra asked, more interested in how this beautiful, strange man he was looking at had reacted to this.

“ _Scott_ ,” Sara said with emphasis “decided that the marks really meant nothing and that he was fated to be alone forever. That it was nothing but a weird birthmark or a joke.”

Evfra snorted. Well matched they were, indeed.

“But I’m pretty sure he never managed to quite convince himself of that. Something inside of him always wanted to believe that you were out there somewhere. And here you are.”

“Here I am,” he echoed. And there Scott was.

Evfra let his gaze trace over him, cataloguing everything he could. He marveled at the dusting of hair on Scott’s cheeks, something only the males of the species seemed to possess. He wondered if it was soft. He wanted so fervently to touch it, but didn’t want to cheat Scott out of the experience. He wouldn’t touch him until he was awake.

Who even knew if Scott truly wanted him? If he had really convinced himself that there was nobody out there for him, maybe he would not welcome being proved wrong. Perhaps he would not want Evfra. Perhaps he would never get to touch these lips with his own.

“Could I sit with him for a while?” he asked Sara, finally lifting his gaze to look at her again. She met his question with a broad grin and winked at him with both of her eyes.

“I can do you one better. Wanna talk to him?”

Evfra felt his whole body tense, muscles bunching up underneath his skin, while the muscle in his chest, the one whose existence he periodically questioned, made itself known by stopping for a second. “What do you mean? Didn’t you say he was comatose?”

“Oh, he is. But through our SAM implants we’ve managed to talk before.” Her eyes wandered to her brother and she started worrying her lips with her teeth. “He got a bit upset last time. I had to tell him about our father dying.” Sara let out a deep breath. “But I managed to talk him down. He was even less close to Dad than I was. Dad kind of dealt in a bad way with our marks and Scott never really forgave him for that. He was calm in the end and his doctor and SAM said I should be able to talk to him again within a few weeks. And I think finding his soulmate is an occasion he would want to know about, yeah?” Her blue gaze settled on Evfra again, who felt nothing if not blindsided.

He wasn’t prepared. He had known that the man was in a coma, so if it turned out that he really was his true one, then he had resigned himself to the idea of not being able to talk to him. If it had turned out that Scott wasn’t who Sara and Jaal believed him to be, then it would have been all the better that no conversation would have been possible.

Evfra wasn’t ready for this. He had just found him and wasn’t ready to face possible rejection so soon after. If Scott told him no then he would have had him only for a few minutes. What were some measly minutes in the face of a lonely past and an equally lonely future?

“Is everything okay?” Sara asked, wrenching him out of his thoughts. “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to, but… I think he’d really want to know. It might be good for him.”

And there she had him. Because if it was only himself he had to think about, the answer would have been caution. But that was what a soulbond was, wasn’t it? The universe’s way of making sure that there was at least one other person out there that you would protect and cherish. Do anything for.

“Alright. What do I have to do?”

Sara beamed at him and Jaal shot him a satisfied, even proud look. His friend, his _brother_ , very probably knew what had gone on in his head. Evfra wasn’t sure if he loved or hated the bastard for it.

“Oh, nothing. Just wait a bit.” She fixed her gaze on nothing in particular. “SAM? Could you establish a connection to Scott? And make sure that we all can hear his responses and not just me?”

“I’ll also make sure that Scott can _hear_ the others as well and not just you,” the disembodied voice of the AI responded. Evfra had only heard it once before and would have lied if he had said that it didn’t still unsettle him slightly. He would have to get used to it, he thought dumbly. If all went well. It was a small price to pay.

Sara rolled her eyes. “You keep working on those humor protocols. But kudos on the sarcasm. I’m proud of you, buddy.”

“Thank you. Connection establishing … Connection established. Scott should be able to hear us.”

“Bro? You up?” Sara asked him and Evfra couldn’t suppress the instinct to hold his breath.

“Sara?”

_Stars._

Evfra was no poet. He didn’t have the words to describe what it felt like to hear Scott’s voice for the first time. All he knew was that for a second, just one small second, the eternal turmoil he grappled with inside of himself came to a stop. For a second there was nothing but stillness, nothing but peace. For a second, he was not at war.

He felt the muscles in his face contort and through a haze of tears he saw Sara and Jaal smile thinly at him, both understanding at least a bit of what he was going through.

“Scott, I have news.”

“If it’s bad news I don’t want to know. Let me nap for god’s sake,” came the grumpy answer and Evfra felt his lips twitch.

“You’ll want to know this, trust me,” answered Sara, laughter in her voice.

Scott sighed. “Sure. Hit me.”

“You remember how I said we’d definitely find our soulmates here?”

There was a moment of silence before Scott responded. Evfra waited with baited breath. “You told me to suck it. And that we should go to Andromeda because fate wanted us to fuck some aliens and that you thought that was beautiful.”

Evfra couldn’t help but snort while Jaal let out one of his booming laughs that either grated on your nerves or made itself a cozy nest in your chest to forever be cherished there. In Evfra’s case both things were true somehow.

“Is somebody else here?” Scott asked, apparently having heard them just like the AI had told them he would.

“If I was a meaner person I would tell you to suck it again, but I’m pretty sure you _will_. If you catch my drift.” Sara waggled her eyebrows in a fairly ridiculous way. Evfra wished he didn’t understand her innuendo. He wished the translators had malfunctioned. He wished she would shut up.

“Sara, what the hell? What are you even talking about? Who’s here?” Scott seemed about as done with her as he was and Evfra could only commend his good sense.

“Yeah, so. Turns out I was right. Turns out, the squiggles on our arms? They’re not nothing. They’re not gibberish.” She paused for effect. “Did I mention we met a bunch of new aliens?”

Scott didn’t answer. _He didn’t answer_. What did that mean? What would happen now? Oh, stars, what if he had been right to be afraid? He relished in being right most of the time, got a dark sort of satisfaction whenever he was. But not this time. Not now.

“Are – are you saying …” Scott finally pressed forth, mental voice shaky and torturously unsure. The tone pierced right through him.

“I’m saying the guy you heard laughing pretty loudly just now? That’s Jaal. He’s all mine. His name’s on my arm.”

“Hello, Scott. It’s good to finally be able to talk to you, brother,” Jaal supplied immediately, voice warm and joyful. Nothing if not welcoming. The antithesis to everything Evfra was. He almost wished Jaal had not been here. The comparison between them could only leave Evfra lacking.

“Hello,” Scott said in a small voice that sounded muffled, almost as if… was he?

“Sara? It’s not… not just a mistake then? They’re really… real?” The utterance of the words seemed to almost hurt him, if Evfra read his tone correctly. Nothing that sounded like that could feel good.

But it wasn’t rejection Evfra could hear in his tone. Fear, yes. And something vulnerable like tentative hope. Nothing that came even close to what he had been afraid of. Nothing to cry bitter tears over. Nothing to torment him at night and day.

“Jaal’s pretty real. And his middle name isn’t even Mildred,” Sara answered, always ready to diffuse the tension with strange mirth.

Scott let out something between a laugh and a whine. The pathfinder took his hand into hers immediately and squeezed it until her knuckles went white. Evfra could see rapid movement behind the delicate skin of Scott’s eyelids while he still made sounds reminiscent of a fight with tears.

“Does he – I mean, was he able to read – ,“ Scott stuttered, own feelings apparently trying to prevent his speech but he was furiously soldering on anyway.

“Jaal was the one who laughed but do you remember another person letting out a snort that really doesn’t befit my awesomeness? That wasn’t me.” Her words were teasing but her tone was gentler than Evfra had thought her capable of being. It was obvious how much she loved her brother.

“Oh, my god. Oh, god,” Scott whispered and stars help him, Evfra had never been so sure that there was a heart beating in his chest after all. Not when it made itself known so unmistakably by trying to escape his breast. “Who, who was it then?”

“Evfra,” Sara told him, keeping it simple for once.

“Evfra?” Scott repeated, voice still unsteady and higher than usual but Evfra would be damned if he had ever heard anything as beautiful as his name stumbling clumsily over these full lips.

“Evfra de Tershaav.”

“Three words,” Scott mumbled seemingly to himself. This seemed to mean something to his sister at least, because she nodded, smile still on her face but also a suspicious sheen in her eyes.

“Evfra?” Scott suddenly asked again, tone insistent but somehow still fragile. As if he was still afraid to hope. As if, to him, it was still not real, no matter what is sister said.

Sara looked at him expectantly and Jaal made an encouraging gesture with his hand, as if telling him to get on with it already. Scott wanted to hear him, wanted to know for sure. To know what was real. That _Evfra_ was real. So he took a deep, steadying breath and gave his true one what he deserved.

“I’m here, Scott. And I won’t leave.” A lie, so early in their relationship. If Scott ever wanted him to leave, he would.

This time there was no mistaking the sounds that came from Scott. There was no mistaking the gasp he let out. No confusing the hitching wines that could be heard with something else.

“Don’t cry,” Evfra told him uselessly, which seemed to only make it worse. Pained, Evfra sent Sara a searching look, wishing she would do something already, feeling helpless in an entirely new way. But while she looked just as pained as he felt, there was no trace of worry on her face.

“Scott, I _know_ , okay? I know what this feels like. But you’re kind of freaking him out.”

“I’m sorry. Shit, I’m sorry.” He seemed to make a concentrated effort to get a hold of himself. “It’s just that… I almost had myself convinced I was alone. And now, to get this, to be allowed to have this.” He paused. “And I don’t even know what you look like.”

“He’s pretty handsome,” Sara supplied immediately and Evfra wasn’t sure if he should be annoyed or thankful. “Not as handsome as Jaal, but you can see how I might be biased.”

Scott laughed, though, so Evfra decided on thankfulness.

“He has that kind of rakish, tortured hero look about him. Totally your type.”

Evfra felt himself flush at the words. “I’m not rakish. Nor am I tortured,” he protested only to have his own brother stab him in the back.

“You’re very tortured, Evfra. But it works for you, trust me.”

He rolled his eyes and let out a low growl that had Scott laugh again. But could he truly be angry? He could probably bear his… family’s mockery as long as it made Scott laugh like that. And he would be lying if he said he had not missed the gentle ribbing of siblings.

“I wish I could see it. I wish I could see _you_.”

A silly thrill went through him as Scott addressed him again. “You’ll have to heal, then.” He winced, because of how forceful his words came out. “I mean, there is no need to rush. I’ve waited thirty years. I can wait a little longer. Now that I know that you exist,” he tried to smooth over his words. He was no good at this.

“It’s not really fair, though. It’s not fair.”

“No. But it’s what we have,” Evfra agreed without much inflection, shoulders slumping slightly.

“If I may,” the AI suddenly made itself known again, jostling Evfra out of the moment and leaving him behind wrong-footed.

“What is it, SAM?” Sara asked with a frown.

“There have been cases where the initiation of a soulbond has had a positive impact on a person’s nervous system. If Mr. de Tershaav and Scott would touch, perhaps the rush of adrenaline might help with the wakeup process.”

“Like a jump start,” Sara added, eyes going wide, looking between Evfra and Scott. “SAM, you’re brilliant.”

“Thank you, pathfinder.”

Evfra licked his lips, world turning on its axis for yet another time today. A few hours ago he hadn’t even been sure if Scott was real. Now he would be allowed to actually… have him? It was too good to believe.

“Evfra, can we? Fuck, please say we can. Please say yes.”

And it was not like Evfra was in any state to deny that, was he?

Instead of answering he lifted his hands, took off his gloves, and slowly, but in the end decisively, took Scott’s limp left hand into his and squeezed.

The machines around them instantly went haywire and Scott gasped.

It took Evfra a second to realize that it had not only been in Scott’s mental voice, but instead, the man’s mouth had opened wide and his back had arched.

And suddenly, Evfra was staring into the most beautiful blue eyes he had ever seen.

 

* * *

 

The first thing he saw was nothing. Just a white so blinding he almost closed his eyes again. But he forced himself to keep them open, forced himself to not let instinct make him a coward.

Not when Evfra – Evfra, Evfra, _Evfra_ – was right here and touching him, making every molecule inside him scream and gasp in pleasured delight.

“What the hell did you do?” he heard Harry’s annoyed voice from somewhere around him.

He groaned.

“SAM said he might wake up if he completed his soulbond,” Sara said mulishly, but also with something like alarm in her voice.

“Damn it, Sara. I didn’t think you would be this stupid.”

“It was my idea, Dr. Carlyle. I calculated that the risk was within acceptable bounds,” SAM jumped in, trying to spare Sara from the lecture.

“Oh, did you now? Since when is that your job?” He had never heard Harry sound so angry and he found it uncommonly funny that he was waking up to this. This entire situation was so absurd and terrific.  He let out a feeble chuckle.

Or at least, he was pretty sure he did.

“See, he’s already laughing at you. He’ll be fine,” Sara said, but Scott knew her well enough to be sure that she wasn’t as certain as she sounded.

Scott, meanwhile, was still trying to blink the light away and attempted to squeeze the hand holding his. It was warm and big. He inwardly shuddered with anticipation. He wanted to see him so badly. Nothing else seemed to matter much.

“He’s squeezing my hand,” Evfra, is _soulmate_ , said to his left and inside his head Scott crowed with victory. He was actually doing it. He was waking up. It wouldn’t be long now. Not if he had anything to say about it.

His heart was pumping fast inside his chest. He had never felt as alive as he did now. The contrast to his previously comatose state was staggering. No wonder this method worked. It was as if somebody had set him on fire. But what a nice, wonderful fire it was.

And suddenly, the light he was seeing seemed to be much more focused and moving.

“Pupils are reacting,” Harry said in a clipped tone and Scott realized that he was staring at the end of a flashlight.

“Put that away, Harry,” he complained and then widened his eyes when he could actually audibly hear his voice, scratchy as it was. His discovery was accompanied by immediately starting to cough and got up on one elbow, never letting go of the hand that was painfully squeezing his.

“Here,” a deep voice – Jaal? – said and a very pink hand pressed a cup to his lips, the contents of which he drank greedily.

Once he had drunk enough to soothe the itch in his throat he moved back his head and looked up to Sara who looked like she ever had and who was grinning at him so broadly it had to hurt. Her eyes were glassy but she lifted her hand and pointed over to his left.

Where Evfra had to be standing. Scott swallowed heavily and kept looking at his sister resolutely until she tilted her head and nodded slightly, encouragingly.

Well, if she was sure.

And she looked happy, she really did. And fuck if it didn’t feel like high time for him to be happy like that, too.

He took a deep breath and turned his head. And looked.

He felt his cheeks flush gradually.

Felt his eyes go wide.

Felt his breath hitch.

Felt his heart bloom.

And fell.

Through slightly watering eyes he stared at the man in front of him, the man whose face betrayed no emotion but whose hand kept squeezing his so tightly, Scott could feel his fingers go numb.

Scott felt a smile spread on his face, first tentatively, and then with more certainty. And the stoic man he was looking at seemed to relax a fraction, loosening his hold on Scott’s hand a little and drawing up one corner of his mouth. The smile was conceivably small. But with Evfra it was all in the eyes, Scott noticed. And those shone like newborn stars.

“Okay, so here’s the deal. I know exactly what the two of you want to do now. I know I did it when I got together with my Catelyn. And I’m all for it. Healthy bonding is imperative and you two need to touch as much as possible,” Harry interrupted their moment, but while Scott spared him his attention he did not take his eyes off of Evfra. “I’ll let the two of you have a few hours of privacy. No overly strenuous activity. But first, I’ll thoroughly check you out. And when you’re done you’ll come back here with no complaints.”

Scott had never heard gentle Harry sound so strained. But as much as he wanted to care, he just couldn’t muster up the emotion. Not when all he heard was that he could spend some time alone with Evfra.

“He’s good with that, I think,” Sara answered for him, bell-like laughter in her voice. “Evfra?”

“Yes. Please.”

Scott pressed his lips together. Had anyone ever looked at him with that much intent? He felt Evfra’s gaze like a physical touch all over his body.

“You’ll be running on adrenaline and bonding hormones. Which is the only reason you’ll be able to… experience any form of – let’s call it _excitement_. Once it leaves your system, I want you, Evfra, to call me or bring him right back here. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” Evfra answered simply, but averted his gaze from Scott to look at Harry and nod.

Scott licked his lips and looked over to him as well. His attention was soon snatched by a tall pink alien, obviously of the same species as Evfra was, standing beside Sara. He had one arm thrown around her and she had put her hand into the one dangling off her shoulder. “Hi, Jaal,” he croaked out and the man grinned broadly, all exuberance. “Hello again, Scott.”

“Thanks. Both of you,” he told his sister and her mate, feeling a heavy blanket of gratefulness settle around his heart. The last time he had been in any form awake in this galaxy, everything had seemed awful and the trip itself nothing but a failure. That this wasn’t the case anymore was something he had them to thank for.

“No, problem,” Sara answered and then bent forward to awkwardly hug Scott around his half-upright position, snorting when it ended up in something uncomfortably tangled. “We’ll hug it out tomorrow, okay?”

“Yeah, that would probably be better,” he said, grinning at her. Jaal stepped close as well, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing while giving him a warm look. “Treat my brother well,” he told him in a tone that actually precluded any form of wrongdoing. It wasn’t a warning. Simply a well wish.

But wait. Brother?

Jaal let him go and wandered over to Evfra who he clapped on the back while Evfra huffed in an annoyed way, while his sister actually plastered herself to his broad back, disappearing wholly behind him in a hug that made Evfra grimace.

“I can feel you pulling a face, Evfra. But you’re family now, so get used to it.”

Evfra rolled his eyes, but patted one of Sara’s hands on his torso in a way that was either meant as a caress or a way of telling her to let go already.

After Jaal and Sara left a moment later, time seemed to both crawl and fly by fast. Harry checked everything he could think of, or at least that’s what it felt like to Scott. During the examination, Evfra and Scott had to let go of each other and right now that made him feel like Harry had decided to amputate a limb.

“Okay. Everything looks normal for the situation.” He typed something into his datapad and then directed his look to Evfra. “Do you have a room here somewhere? Where you can stay?”

“I didn’t think of that,” he admitted in a grudging tone.

“Don’t I have quarters here?” Scott asked, stretching his hand back out into Evfra’s direction, who did not hesitate to slip his fingers between Scott’s again.

Harry shot him a thoughtful look before raising his datapad again and typing something into it. A look of surprise took hold of his features. “Yes, you do. Clearance came through a minute ago. Authorized by… Vetra Nyx. Of course.” His lips twitched. “Seems like at least someone here has some forethought. The access code is probably in your omni-tool already.”

And Scott, who was really, totally done waiting, finally swung his legs over the edge of the bed and got up.

Standing beside him, Scott noticed that Evfra was about half a head taller than him, something Scott, who wasn’t the tallest of humans but at least of average height, didn’t experience often.

“Please tell me we can go,” he told to him, for the first time addressing him directly while _looking_ at him.

“Yes. Let’s.”

The walk to his quarters, the location of which he had looked up hastily in his omni-tool, went by in a rush. He walked as fast as he could, still running high on the need to be close to Evfra and do something with him that involved naked skin and lots of touching. Evfra’s long legs matched his pace easily and no time had passed at all until they stepped through the door, the bed directly in their field of vision.

“You feel it too, right? You want to, too?”

Scott suddenly felt anxiousness take hold of him. What if Evfra wasn’t wired that way? He seemed stoic enough, maybe that meant he wanted this bond to be platonic. Fuck, Scott could live with that. If only he could have Evfra in some way, that would be enough. As long as Evfra was fine with Scott heaping all the feelings that were already starting to build within himself on him it would be okay. As long as Evfra would return those feelings as well.

But Scott also couldn’t deny that he wanted to strip Evfra of all his clothing and see what was under there. To explore it all and see if he couldn’t be clever enough to find something to make his serious demeanor slip.

He needn’t have worried, though.

“I want everything you’re willing to give me.”

“You might want to overthink that. Because I want to give you everything. And then some,” Scott told him, lips quirking, already stepping closer to the man, relieved beyond measure and palms tingling where they touched the blue skin of Evfra’s neck.

“That still might not be enough,” Evfra said, voice colored by a deeper pitch than before, suffused with something that almost sounded like a growl that had the fine hairs on the back of Scott’s skull stand up pleasantly.

Scott raised a brow. “Wanna find out?”

The second his question was uttered, Evfra was on him.

His hands yanked Scott to his chest by his upper body and a moan rose in Scott’s throat once full and silky lips pressed themselves to his hotly, wetly and so, so headily. Within seconds their kisses turned openmouthed and almost sloppy in their need, tongues touching and teeth scraping over lips only to be soothed by bold stokes of soft tongue again.

Scott’s breath was coming out erratically through his lungs and echoed loudly from the walls only rivaled by Evfra’s own labored breathing and the quiet noises that he made in the back of his throat. These little growling rumbles zapped through Scott like shocks made out of pure arousal and had his cock standing to attention and leaking.

He pressed his pelvis forward to gain some sort of friction and Evfra immediately let his hands wander down to Scott’s ass, gripping the globes of flesh in his palms and pressing him against himself urgently. Scott had to raise himself to the tips of his toes to keep standing but he hardly minded, especially when Evfra wrenched his mouth away from Scott’s only to kiss a wet trail down to his neck and suck what promised to be a colorful mark onto it.

Scott lost his breath like water between his fingers, cock throbbing in his pants. His legs started shaking with the effort of keeping himself up, but he sensed that Evfra was shifting his stance and could practically feel Evfra taking some of his weight like it was nothing to him. Scott dug his fingers into Evfra’s upper arm, so fucking turned on he thought he might go blind from it.

“Evfra, clothes. Bed,” he said blearily, not even quite sure what was coming out of his mouth once he realized that Evfra’s erection was pressing against his own, the contact sending sparks through him.

He blinked when he suddenly heard a happy laugh being huffed against the abused skin of his throat. “Clothes or bed? Which is it?”

Scott tugged at Evfra’s head so he could see what he had already heard. And he was not disappointed. There, on Evfra’s face, the cheeks of which had flushed dark blue, was a closemouthed smile and the burning light of joy within his eyes.

“Both,” he breathed hardly being able to believe how lucky he was.

 

* * *

 

There was a flurry of tugging, of yanking, and clothes being thrown carelessly every which way.

There was more hair on Scott’s chest, just a slight dusting of it and another trail down from his navel and to his cock that was glistening with fluid at the tip and flushed red, the skin thin and so very silky to the touch.

Scott didn’t waste another second, seemingly having forgotten that he had wanted to get Evfra into bed and instead taking his own shaft, dark blue and long since emerged from between his protective folds. “I don’t think I ever thought anybody’s dick was beautiful but…” Scott left the sentence open ended, while Evfra sucked a hissing breath through his teeth as Scott gave him a few heady strokes.

He knew what he meant anyway.

He could hardly believe it, but he knew.

This was real, this was happening. It was happening too fast and too slowly at the same time. Evfra wanted to treasure the moment, but everything inside him screamed to get on with it, to share pleasure with Scott until they both inevitably peaked, brought to completion by the other.

He pressed Scott close again, trapping his hand between their bodies and took his mouth once more, completely unwilling to suppress the urge to keep feeling those soft, wonderful lips against his.

Evfra kept their kisses more tender this time around but they were no less passionate, no less feeling. With every touch of Scott’s mouth against his, something inside of him, every tiny cut on his heart, seemed to be soothed one by one, as if Scott’s lips were the balm he had been searching for his whole life. He could feel himself become whole again under the ministration of this strange, strange, wonderful human and he couldn’t believe he had ever thought he would be able to live his life without this. Now that he had it, it was hard even knowing he had never had Scott in his arms before. The idea alone _hurt_.

Slowly they started walking towards the bed until the backs of Scott’s legs hit the edge of it and they toppled over onto it, Scott laughing against his lips and Evfra feeling a smile taking over his face as well.

Together they scooted up the duvet until Scott’s head was pillowed comfortably and Evfra was lying half on the bed beside him and half on top of his chest. He hadn’t forgotten that Scott had only been up for less than an hour and didn’t want to do anything to make him worse.

But Scott wouldn’t have it and immediately started tugging on Evfra’s arms until he had climbed on top of Scott and settled down between his legs.

They moaned at the same time when their cocks touched, pressing slickly against each other and Evfra could feel his bioelectricity slip out of his control, taking over his whole body, making Scott jump in surprise before letting out a high whine.

“Are you doing that?” Scott asked, canting up his hips in a way that had Evfra pressing back all too gladly, though he made sure to keep the weight of his upper body off of Scott’s chest.

“It’s bioelectricity. I can’t really help it right now. You are too…” His sentence trailed off into another moan as they began moving together in earnest, creating the most delicious of friction.

“Are you telling me I make you lose control?” Scott asked him, clearly gloating no matter that it was Evfra that was making him writhe. Evfra only answered with a labored grunt.

“Because I want to keep doing that. I want to do everything with you. Strip away all your defenses and make you moan and squirm and scream my name.”

Evfra felt his neck flush hotly, pressing his eyes shut tightly as he felt his cock give a twitch and leak more moisture unto Scott’s belly. He had never been one to talk with his partners much during sex. He wasn’t used to such words being whispered to him, so he was wholly unprepared for the effect it seemed to have on him.

Scott apparently noticed immediately and grinned a wolfish smile. “Do you like that idea? Big guy like you all at my mercy? Wanting me closer, begging me to finish what I started but secretly wishing it all would never end?”

He seemed to require an answer from Evfra, so he let out a shaky breath and nodded, unable to get out any more than that. When it came to sex he had always been the one to take charge, to lead. It was safer that way. No surprises that way.

But the thought of their positions being reversed, of Scott peering down at him instead of up, of taking what he needed while making sure to give Evfra what he wanted as well … He breathed in sharply through his nose.

“You’re picturing it, aren’t you?” Scott asked and for the first time, Evfra noticed that there was something like wonder in his voice. “You’d let me? You’d like it?”

“Stars, yes,” Evfra growled out feeling acutely like they both were finding something they had been searching for at the same time.

“I’d take such good care of you. I’d make it so good for you. You don’t even know, god.” His features contorted and he arched his back, asking Evfra wordlessly to pick up the pace. Evfra complied, needing to come just as much as Scott seemingly did, feeling the divine pressure inside of him build up even more, begging to be released.

“I know you would,” he reassured Scott.

“I’m going to make you see stars, Evfra. I’ll fuck you so well and so thoroughly, you’ll be able to feel me for days after.” Evfra swallowed painfully, feeling his current whirling with more rapidity and need. “And every time you sit you’ll think of me and what I did to you. And you’ll love it. All you’ll be able to think about it is how much you want to do it again. And I’ll give it to you. Anything you want.”

Resistance meetings. He would have to stand for them. If they saw the ever stoic Evfra fidget they would know something was wrong. He almost wanted them to know. It would show them. Maybe he would sit after all. Let them all know he was having the best sex of his life with this tiny human who had a filthier mouth than anybody he had ever met.

“You’ll look so good all spread out under me. Flushed dark blue, taking me in so well. Fuck, can you imagine what it will look like? My cock disappearing inside of you, filling it up so perfectly. I’ll give you anything you’d ask for. But I’ll also draw it out. Make it last. You’ll be spoiled for anybody but me.”

Evfra already was, that much he knew.

“And that cock of yours,” Scott gasped, absentmindedly licking his lips. He opened his eyes but kept them half lidded, looking Evfra in the eye. “I want to get my mouth around it and suck you dry. Until your legs are shaking and you can’t take it anymore. And I’ll look into your eyes the whole time. Watching you watch me. Seeing you come undone. I won’t miss even a second of it. And I’ll think about it whenever I want.”

The picture was enough for Evfra to fall forward, bioelectricity releasing at the same time he reached his peak, vibrations zapping through his perfect, wonderful, filthy love as he spent himself between them.

As the shocks hit Scott he cried out as well, clutching Evfra’s shoulders for something to hold onto, adding his own seed to Evfra’s on his belly, mixing his essence with Evfra’s.

Evfra was breathing hotly and no doubt wetly against Scott’s cheek, the hair there softer than it looked, which made Evfra rub his cheek against the scruff, relishing in the feeling while coming down from his high slowly.

He heard Scott swallow and felt his arms creep around his shoulders, embracing him while insistently pressing him down until Scott was carrying the whole of Evfra’s weight.

“I don’t want to crush you,” Evfra said without putting up much of a fight.

“You won’t. I want to feel you on me. I want to know you’re really there,” Scott told him quietly, breathing slowly becoming more measured.

Evfra made no move to get up once he heard this reasoning, all too able to relate to it. Even if Evfra was heavy, the heaviness had to be a constant reminder to Scott that Evfra was not a figment of his imagination, even if it made breathing a little harder.

Apparently satisfied that Evfra wouldn’t move, Scott began to stroke the skin of Evfra’s back, undoubtedly tracing scars as he went.

His ministrations sent little shudders of affectionate pleasure through Evfra, who couldn’t help the little content noises that kept forcing themselves out of his throat.

He had never felt this content. He had never felt this _warm_.  

“You liked me talking to you like that?” Scott wanted to know and Evfra would have snorted if Scott’s hands weren’t petting such forceful reactions right out of him.

“I think that was obvious.”

Scott chuckled, seemingly feeling as mellow and sated as Evfra did now that the urgency had left their bones. “I’ve never really done that before. But I wanted to, with you. Seemed right.”

 _It was perfect_ , Evfra thought. But what he said was, “Thank you.”

“What for?” Scott asked, never stopping his gentle touches.

For being here.

For being you.

“For everything.”

Spring had finally found its way into Evfra’s breast.

If there ever had been a curse it was lifted now.

And his heart had never beaten more steadily or strong.


End file.
